Baby back ribs with miso sauce

It took me all day to decide whether I should post this recipe. Two reasons. First, I wasn’t able to take good photos of the baked baby back ribs because we were in a hurry to have dinner last night. Second, I did this dish a second time today for lunch but using pork spare ribs and cooking them on the stove top — and the result was even better. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take photos either.

But the dish is too good not to be shared. So I figured that what I lack in photos, I can make up for with words. I’ll be very detailed.  

Based on a recipe by Roger Mooking.

Serves 6.

Ingredients:

2 racks of baby back ribs, each weighing about 800 grams

For the sauce:

1 c. of miso paste (the seasoned kind used for making miso soup)
1 c. of brown sugar
3 tbsps. of light soy sauce (I used Kikkoman)
3 tbsps. of rice wine vinegar
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp. of sesame seed oil
3 oranges

To bake:

1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 to 3 oranges, cut thinly into rounds

Line the bottom and sides of a baking dish with foil. The sauce contains a lot of sugar which will caramelize during baking. So unless you want to deal with the painful effort of removing burnt sugar on the baking dish, line it with foil.

Cover the bottom of the baking dish with onion slices. Top the onion slices with orange slices.

Make the sauce by mixing together the miso paste, sugar, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, rice wine vinegar and garlic.

Grate the skins of three oranges to get the zest then squeeze the juice from the oranges.

Add the orange zest and juice to the sauce and mix until smooth.

Place the baby back ribs in the baking dish, bone side down.

Pour one-third of the sauce over the baby back ribs. Bake in a 325F oven for 40 minutes.

Pour another one-third of the sauce over the ribs and continue baking for another 40 minutes.

Repeat until you have poured all the sauce and the ribs have baked for a total of two hours. It is important to bake for two hours. I tried to do a short cut but reducing the baking time to an hour and half but the pork wasn”�t as tender as I”�d wanted it to be. So, be patient.

Place the rack of ribs on a chopping board and slice between the bones. Pour some of the juices from the pan over the pork and serve.

Now, if you want to make the stove top version, use pork spare ribs that have already been cut between the bones. Line a wide shallow pan (a large frying pan was what I used) with the onion slices then top with the orange slices. Arrange the spare ribs over them in a single layer then pour in all the sauce. Cook over low heat for two hours, turning the ribs over after an hour. To serve, lift the ribs and transfer to a platter. Pour the sauce over and serve.